This is my personal blog. I was Branch Secretary of Lambeth UNISON from 1992 to 2017 and a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of UNISON, the public service union (www.unison.org.uk) from 2003 to 2017.
I am Chair of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party and of the Sussex Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
Neither the Labour Party nor UNISON is responsible for the contents of this personal blog. (Nor is my employer!)

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Monday, April 30, 2007

United we stand - but are we going anywhere?

I would like to be encouraged by the following news of UNISON and GMB working together on the Labour leadership (and of course this has nothing to do with any coming together between other large unions that might be going on just now…)

The news is thus;

In a joint statement, UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis and his GMB counterpart Paul Kenny said: "The role played by ordinary union members in supporting the Labour party, in developing policy and in electing its leaders since its formation, has been crucial to the social and economic progress of our nation."The forthcoming elections provide a fresh opportunity to millions of trade unionists to have a direct and personal influence in the selection of the party's leader and deputy leader. And it offers them the opportunity to refresh policy and set out a strategic direction for the party."Union members want a say in how public services are provided and funded, they said."They are the people in the front line delivering public services day in, day out. They know how the use of outside agencies to deliver services leads to waste, duplication and money seeping out to pay for expensive financial engineering schemes and the over-management that it entails."They want to get the best value for the public money that funds them."The unions' political committees will form their agreement by the middle of May, by which time Labour's national executive committee will have set out its timetable for the elections.All UNISON and GMB members who pay the Labour party political levy are able to vote.

But if we want to have a choice we need a candidate who backs union policies.